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drewkittyGWOT V - A State Of Desperation - Ride Along
I'd seen something that stuck in my mind.
Before the War, California had had a booming television and film industry that publicized many of her institutions - the California HIghway Patrol, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County FIre Department, and so on.
But I didn't recall a "CAL OSHA."
I'd seen one of their officers just qualify on the pistol range. She was a good shot. There wasn't anything to clue me in to what an OSHA did, if anything.
So I asked some random folks on the street.
"Cops. Why do you ask?"
"Business cops. You see them in stores and restaurants and factories a lot."
"Just some other jerk in a uniform depriving us of our rights."
"State law enforcement."
None of that was very helpful. But it did show that not everyone loved California's new look and feel.
So I messaged George, our pet Collections agent.
He arranged to meet us at the CAL OSHA office in Redding in an hour, and provided an address.
The pedicab driver hadn't heard of us, so we got to pay him.
The building was a state office building that reminded me a lot of prior trips to America.
Concrete barriers, woven fence wire, people standing around with machine guns. The entire city block around off limits to motor vehicles, except for one access for the loading dock protected by hydraulic barriers and unsmiling soldiers with more machine guns.
You know, America.
But they made no effort to interfere with the people going into the building.
We went inside. There were guards on duty, visibly armed, but they didn't stop and search everyone.
George was in front of the loudly, cheerfully labeled HELP DESK.
"Fifth floor," he said, and made sure his snarling-bear credential was displayed.
Suddenly people started to give all four of us an extremely wide berth, as if we were all radioactive.
We got in an elevator - everyone else got out. George pushed the button for 5.
About ten seconds after we got out, the 5 elevator lobby was nearly empty. It had been crowded.
There was a door, to a room, with comfortable chairs and a few clipboards and a bullet resistant window to a reception area.
A door opened and we were walked past the waiting area, down corridors labeled SECURE AREA and towards a corner office.
George put his credential away.
People still avoided us. Apparently he was a known personage here.
"Deputy director, good afternoon. This is the Beeb crew. She's got a good question for you. What's CAL OSHA?"
Said director was dressed in a severe business suit, sensible shoes and the kind of knife-edged glare that could raise welts at thirty meters.
"Good afternoon. Please forgive George, he lost his manners in the War. Coffee? Tea? Water? Soda? No?
"CAL OSHA is the state Occupational Safety and Health Administration. We are responsible for the safety of California workers, employees, temporary workers, casual laborers and anyone who is inside a store or office, whether they work there or not. Before the War this was easier. We mostly got a call after someone was hurt, sometimes badly, and levied small civil fines for the employer who forgot to train their employees how to use the forklilft, or whatever.
"Now we take a much more ... proactive ... role in guaranteeing the safety of the public and of employees. CAL OSHA officers don't wait for someone to get hurt before they check forklift licenses. Or that scaffolding is properly installed. Or that food is safely prepared. Or that guards checking for bombs and guns are actually checking for bombs and guns. And the list goes on and on and on."
I thought about it.
"How many of your employees are armed?"
"All field inspectors are armed. That's about two thirds of our internal workforce. About one in five are on the streets driving marked units, much like any other police, except that they mostly pull over commercial vehicles to check licensing and log books. Most are assigned to beats with a mix of commercial and industrial locations. A few are specialists in a particular industry with extensive training in the specifics of that industry."
"Why are they armed?"
"Because they issue civil and criminal citations, have the power of arrest and are frequently in extremely dangerous situations," George interjected. "Such as being by themselves among a factory full of workers."
"So they're company cops? Or factory cops?"
"But they don't work for the company or the factory. They work for the People of California," the Deputy Director explained. "They can literally order the company to shut down operations. On the spot. We don't do that casually but it does happen. More likely, if they catch someone say, driving a forklift without a license, both that employee and the floor manager on duty get a criminal citation and are sent home. From that point, without pay.
"This case on my desk is from a food distribution company. CAL OSHA inspector checked the ammonia chiller system. It hadn't been inspected. The inspector ordered the building evacuated and posted over it - from outside - until a qualified inspector was found, inspected it, and passed it. The company sued for business interference and losses for half a day of lost work, including paying the workers to sit around and wait. They're going to get their day in court but they're going to lose that claim. A leaking ammonia chiller can kill people and it was the company's fault it hadn't been inspected."
"Can we ride along with a OSHA inspector?"
"Sure. Let me make a couple calls. We'll have someone pick you up out front."
As we walked away, George volunteered, "She doesn't like me much. I keep giving her work to do."
My guard raised an eyebrow at him a quarter inch.
"More work to do."
###
The marked CAL OSHA unit could have been mistaken for a CHP patrol cruiser, right down to the push bumper and light bar.
My guard and I sat in the back. The camera operator sat up front. George disappeared to his own work, whatever that was.
"I'm Edwina ______ and I've worked for CAL OSHA since before the War. I took this job, Highway Safety, just after the Resistance became the State. I thought it was interesting. I had no idea. But it's still interesting every day.
"This is my rulebook." She held up a thick book, a three inch binder packed with printed notes and with some pages indicated by sticky notes. "Some of this is what CHP would call Commercial Vehicle Enforcement, which they don't do very much anymore but we do instead. A lot of this is driver logs and safety regulations. Some of it is mandatory equipment. But a lot of it is what used to be called Industry Practices or Workplace Safety."
Suddenly we made a U-turn and Edwina activated the emergency lights.
Sullenly a taxicab pulled over. Instead of pulling behind it, she pulled alongside and rolled down her window.
"Yeah?"
"Lights."
The annoyed cabbie's face fell as she checked her headlights, found them off, and immediately turned them on.
"Thank you. Pass over your log book."
Edwina passed it to me. I opened it. The first page was a name, face, photo. The driver. It was a clip on page. The pages below were about the taxi itself. Maintenance history, records.
I handed it back to Edwina. She opened it to the last page, scribbled something, handed it back to the driver.
"Thank you and have a safe day," she said. Released, the taxicab took off as quickly as could be reconciled with driving slowly and safely in front of a cop.
"I noted down a casual log check. The driver won't get in trouble for that. But if some other cop sees that, and wonders why, they can ask me. And if I remember I can tell them. Or if the driver thinks they are being harassed, they can complain about me. Any stop I _have_ to put in their log book. That's a protection for them."
"I could have issued a traffic ticket. That would eventually be a fine. But this is faster and smoother. I'm here to make commerce safer, not to get in the way of it."
We kept driving.
The radio was fairly quiet. The occasional unit ID, incomprehensible jargon ("What was a 'priors check for strap and rack?'") and location of a more formal traffic stop.
"Ah." Seeing something we didn't, Edwina lit up a heavy semi-truck.
It slowed obediently but the rear brake lights did not all come on. Only one of the three.
"Excuse me, back in a moment. Please stay in the car."
Edwina came back with the driver's log book in her hand.
"He's going back to his facility and we're following behind him. We'll be his brake lights."
On arrival, she wrote out a citation and made notes in the log book. The driver went inside the gate house and made a phone call.
As Edwina finished up her paperwork, there were three managers waiting next to the driver.
"This truck is deadlined until inspected by a third party mechanic," she explained. "Be thankful we're not going inside and looking through your shop maintenance logs. Brake lights are a Big Deal and your driver shouldn't have missed them in pre drive checks. But your mechanics shouldn't have missed them either."
She tossed the book to the angriest looking of the managers and presented the citation to the driver.
"You understand that you are being cited for improper operation of a commercial vehicle with a hazard condition. This is a civil infraction at this time. Your license is therefore suspended without prejudice for 72 hours..."
The driver reluctantly signed the citation, received his copy, and Edwina got back in the cruiser with us.
"Driving a semi truck is a privilege not a right. So is operating one in commerce. They want to own their own trucks, they need to follow the rules. Or they can hire a third party company."
"What if a third party breaks the rules?"
"I follow the truck to _their_ facility and there it sits until it's fixed."
"What about the cargo?"
"The owner of the cargo can hire another truck and break bulk if they want. Or they can wait for the contractor truck to get fixed. Not the state's problem."
But a truck on public road with bad brake lights - or bad brakes - was the state's problem.
"The idea is to catch little things before they become big things."
We stopped at the gatehouse on the way out, where Edwina had each of the guards show her a little card.
"Yup, all licensed. Forget your license at home, that's a citation. Not having a license, that's a crime. Not just for you, but for the company."
We pulled back out into traffic.
"Have you all had lunch? Good. I bring mine. See too many restaurants that I have to cite. Excuse me, food truck check."
Edwina got out of the cruiser, knocked on the back of the food truck, went inside. Came back a couple minutes later tucking something into its little slot on her breast pocket.
A food thermometer.
"Hot is hot, cold is cold, and that guy is groovy."
I'd seen something that stuck in my mind.
Before the War, California had had a booming television and film industry that publicized many of her institutions - the California HIghway Patrol, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County FIre Department, and so on.
But I didn't recall a "CAL OSHA."
I'd seen one of their officers just qualify on the pistol range. She was a good shot. There wasn't anything to clue me in to what an OSHA did, if anything.
So I asked some random folks on the street.
"Cops. Why do you ask?"
"Business cops. You see them in stores and restaurants and factories a lot."
"Just some other jerk in a uniform depriving us of our rights."
"State law enforcement."
None of that was very helpful. But it did show that not everyone loved California's new look and feel.
So I messaged George, our pet Collections agent.
He arranged to meet us at the CAL OSHA office in Redding in an hour, and provided an address.
The pedicab driver hadn't heard of us, so we got to pay him.
The building was a state office building that reminded me a lot of prior trips to America.
Concrete barriers, woven fence wire, people standing around with machine guns. The entire city block around off limits to motor vehicles, except for one access for the loading dock protected by hydraulic barriers and unsmiling soldiers with more machine guns.
You know, America.
But they made no effort to interfere with the people going into the building.
We went inside. There were guards on duty, visibly armed, but they didn't stop and search everyone.
George was in front of the loudly, cheerfully labeled HELP DESK.
"Fifth floor," he said, and made sure his snarling-bear credential was displayed.
Suddenly people started to give all four of us an extremely wide berth, as if we were all radioactive.
We got in an elevator - everyone else got out. George pushed the button for 5.
About ten seconds after we got out, the 5 elevator lobby was nearly empty. It had been crowded.
There was a door, to a room, with comfortable chairs and a few clipboards and a bullet resistant window to a reception area.
A door opened and we were walked past the waiting area, down corridors labeled SECURE AREA and towards a corner office.
George put his credential away.
People still avoided us. Apparently he was a known personage here.
"Deputy director, good afternoon. This is the Beeb crew. She's got a good question for you. What's CAL OSHA?"
Said director was dressed in a severe business suit, sensible shoes and the kind of knife-edged glare that could raise welts at thirty meters.
"Good afternoon. Please forgive George, he lost his manners in the War. Coffee? Tea? Water? Soda? No?
"CAL OSHA is the state Occupational Safety and Health Administration. We are responsible for the safety of California workers, employees, temporary workers, casual laborers and anyone who is inside a store or office, whether they work there or not. Before the War this was easier. We mostly got a call after someone was hurt, sometimes badly, and levied small civil fines for the employer who forgot to train their employees how to use the forklilft, or whatever.
"Now we take a much more ... proactive ... role in guaranteeing the safety of the public and of employees. CAL OSHA officers don't wait for someone to get hurt before they check forklift licenses. Or that scaffolding is properly installed. Or that food is safely prepared. Or that guards checking for bombs and guns are actually checking for bombs and guns. And the list goes on and on and on."
I thought about it.
"How many of your employees are armed?"
"All field inspectors are armed. That's about two thirds of our internal workforce. About one in five are on the streets driving marked units, much like any other police, except that they mostly pull over commercial vehicles to check licensing and log books. Most are assigned to beats with a mix of commercial and industrial locations. A few are specialists in a particular industry with extensive training in the specifics of that industry."
"Why are they armed?"
"Because they issue civil and criminal citations, have the power of arrest and are frequently in extremely dangerous situations," George interjected. "Such as being by themselves among a factory full of workers."
"So they're company cops? Or factory cops?"
"But they don't work for the company or the factory. They work for the People of California," the Deputy Director explained. "They can literally order the company to shut down operations. On the spot. We don't do that casually but it does happen. More likely, if they catch someone say, driving a forklift without a license, both that employee and the floor manager on duty get a criminal citation and are sent home. From that point, without pay.
"This case on my desk is from a food distribution company. CAL OSHA inspector checked the ammonia chiller system. It hadn't been inspected. The inspector ordered the building evacuated and posted over it - from outside - until a qualified inspector was found, inspected it, and passed it. The company sued for business interference and losses for half a day of lost work, including paying the workers to sit around and wait. They're going to get their day in court but they're going to lose that claim. A leaking ammonia chiller can kill people and it was the company's fault it hadn't been inspected."
"Can we ride along with a OSHA inspector?"
"Sure. Let me make a couple calls. We'll have someone pick you up out front."
As we walked away, George volunteered, "She doesn't like me much. I keep giving her work to do."
My guard raised an eyebrow at him a quarter inch.
"More work to do."
###
The marked CAL OSHA unit could have been mistaken for a CHP patrol cruiser, right down to the push bumper and light bar.
My guard and I sat in the back. The camera operator sat up front. George disappeared to his own work, whatever that was.
"I'm Edwina ______ and I've worked for CAL OSHA since before the War. I took this job, Highway Safety, just after the Resistance became the State. I thought it was interesting. I had no idea. But it's still interesting every day.
"This is my rulebook." She held up a thick book, a three inch binder packed with printed notes and with some pages indicated by sticky notes. "Some of this is what CHP would call Commercial Vehicle Enforcement, which they don't do very much anymore but we do instead. A lot of this is driver logs and safety regulations. Some of it is mandatory equipment. But a lot of it is what used to be called Industry Practices or Workplace Safety."
Suddenly we made a U-turn and Edwina activated the emergency lights.
Sullenly a taxicab pulled over. Instead of pulling behind it, she pulled alongside and rolled down her window.
"Yeah?"
"Lights."
The annoyed cabbie's face fell as she checked her headlights, found them off, and immediately turned them on.
"Thank you. Pass over your log book."
Edwina passed it to me. I opened it. The first page was a name, face, photo. The driver. It was a clip on page. The pages below were about the taxi itself. Maintenance history, records.
I handed it back to Edwina. She opened it to the last page, scribbled something, handed it back to the driver.
"Thank you and have a safe day," she said. Released, the taxicab took off as quickly as could be reconciled with driving slowly and safely in front of a cop.
"I noted down a casual log check. The driver won't get in trouble for that. But if some other cop sees that, and wonders why, they can ask me. And if I remember I can tell them. Or if the driver thinks they are being harassed, they can complain about me. Any stop I _have_ to put in their log book. That's a protection for them."
"I could have issued a traffic ticket. That would eventually be a fine. But this is faster and smoother. I'm here to make commerce safer, not to get in the way of it."
We kept driving.
The radio was fairly quiet. The occasional unit ID, incomprehensible jargon ("What was a 'priors check for strap and rack?'") and location of a more formal traffic stop.
"Ah." Seeing something we didn't, Edwina lit up a heavy semi-truck.
It slowed obediently but the rear brake lights did not all come on. Only one of the three.
"Excuse me, back in a moment. Please stay in the car."
Edwina came back with the driver's log book in her hand.
"He's going back to his facility and we're following behind him. We'll be his brake lights."
On arrival, she wrote out a citation and made notes in the log book. The driver went inside the gate house and made a phone call.
As Edwina finished up her paperwork, there were three managers waiting next to the driver.
"This truck is deadlined until inspected by a third party mechanic," she explained. "Be thankful we're not going inside and looking through your shop maintenance logs. Brake lights are a Big Deal and your driver shouldn't have missed them in pre drive checks. But your mechanics shouldn't have missed them either."
She tossed the book to the angriest looking of the managers and presented the citation to the driver.
"You understand that you are being cited for improper operation of a commercial vehicle with a hazard condition. This is a civil infraction at this time. Your license is therefore suspended without prejudice for 72 hours..."
The driver reluctantly signed the citation, received his copy, and Edwina got back in the cruiser with us.
"Driving a semi truck is a privilege not a right. So is operating one in commerce. They want to own their own trucks, they need to follow the rules. Or they can hire a third party company."
"What if a third party breaks the rules?"
"I follow the truck to _their_ facility and there it sits until it's fixed."
"What about the cargo?"
"The owner of the cargo can hire another truck and break bulk if they want. Or they can wait for the contractor truck to get fixed. Not the state's problem."
But a truck on public road with bad brake lights - or bad brakes - was the state's problem.
"The idea is to catch little things before they become big things."
We stopped at the gatehouse on the way out, where Edwina had each of the guards show her a little card.
"Yup, all licensed. Forget your license at home, that's a citation. Not having a license, that's a crime. Not just for you, but for the company."
We pulled back out into traffic.
"Have you all had lunch? Good. I bring mine. See too many restaurants that I have to cite. Excuse me, food truck check."
Edwina got out of the cruiser, knocked on the back of the food truck, went inside. Came back a couple minutes later tucking something into its little slot on her breast pocket.
A food thermometer.
"Hot is hot, cold is cold, and that guy is groovy."
